and drive all the way to Albuquerque without her breathing another single detail. I’d hunt that fucker down and—
“The school handled the situation as best they could, but he stayed right on the side of legal in his creepiness. I was afraid to leave my room, and although I tried to keep up with my schoolwork from inside my dorm, it was just hard with upper level classes, and impossible with the science lab I’d registered for. I had to spend the first half of this semester working through those labs again for credit.” She refocuses on her plate, head hung in misery, and I barely keep my finger from crooking under her chin to make her look up at me. “I’m lucky the teacher let me do the labs that way and the dean over the program is letting me shove a full semester of internship into these last couple of months. I would’ve had to stay another semester.”
“You mean you would’ve had to spend an entire semester following me around?” She lifts her head grinning. “You did get lucky.”
“Maybe.” Her eyes sparkle, and I have to look away before I mistake the look for something more than it is.
“You didn’t tell your dad?” She shakes her head. “Afraid he’d hurt him?”
“I could say my dad would probably kill him then laugh it off as a joke, but I honestly don’t know what he’d do to him.” I wouldn’t blame the man. “I do know what he’d do to me, and I wasn’t about to be locked down. I was lucky to go away to college, and it was a subject of contention for a very long time. My senior year of high school was almost ruined by it. I didn’t want to be forced to transfer or do online classes from my gilded tower.”
“Cerberus is very protective?” I deduce.
“I’m surprised someone hasn’t already tracked my phone tonight.” She doesn’t laugh. “But I’ll be even more surprised if we walk outside and there isn’t a row of motorcycles waiting to escort me home.”
“Seems smothering. Did you let them know where you were?”
“I did. I texted my mom. She told me to have a good time. She’s not as strict as my dad despite having grown up in… circumstances.”
She gives me a weak smile, and her statement makes me want to dig a little deeper into her life, but I won’t do that. Unless I suspect she’s in an unsafe situation, I want all of her secrets whispered from her perfect mouth, not discovered from digging into her family’s history.
“So no wild parties at school?”
“My freshman year grades were compromised from having a little too much fun, but after I had to retake a math class, I knew I had to calm down. So really just a wild second semester.”
“Not a first semester?”
She grins and opens her purse when the waiter drops the check off. I wave her off and pull out my wallet, handing him my card before she can argue. She still pulls a twenty out and drops it on the table.
“For the tip,” she explains, and I know there’s no sense in arguing. It also won’t stop me from tipping the young man myself.
“So, no partying the first semester?” I ask again.
“I was so sheltered growing up. It took that first semester, and my dormmate’s incessant begging for me to finally cave and attend a party. After that, I was hooked. I wanted to party every weekend. Thursday night to early Sunday morning you could find me on frat row or at one of the bars playing pool and darts. I was a hellion. Bad things could’ve happened. Last year was proof of that, but thankfully, I stayed safe.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“David?”
“Is that his name? Your stalker?”
She sits back in her seat, and until this moment, I didn’t realize just how close we were to each other.
“He didn’t hurt me. He texted, called, emailed, slid notes under my door. Gifts were delivered. I didn’t return his affections, blew him off once at a party not knowing he was the same guy spamming my school email. I caught him one day trying to slip a package under my door, and I called campus security.”
“What was in the package?”
She watches my face, biting the inside of her lip, and it’s clear she doesn’t want to tell me. I may have to backpedal on the declaration of learning all of her secrets from her own lips.